Читать книгу A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days - Joseph Grego - Страница 41

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A fair representation of a chairing scene is given as the second of a series of eight plates which, under the title of “Robin’s Progress,” satirically delineates the career of Sir Robert Walpole. The newly elected member is seated, tranquilly enough, in a capacious arm-chair, raised aloft by his supporters; there are a few “bludgeon-men” among his followers. Hats are thrown into the air, and a general sense of satisfaction is shown to prevail. One of the party, evidently a person of influence, is made to exclaim, “No bribery, no corruption!” A group of more distrustful persons is pictured in the foreground; an elector observes, “I wish we mayn’t be deceived,” while his confederate is declaring, “I smell a rat!” Whatever “undue influence” might have been hinted on this occasion, Walpole had not at that early date (1701) developed the arts of corruption and electioneering, then synonymous; his proficiency in these branches was of later growth. Although not strictly a contemporaneous picture of the event, the engraving which represents the chairing of Sir Robert Walpole on his election for Castle Rising, Norfolk, in 1701, is the earliest of our election illustrations as regards the date of the incident depicted. Walpole, in succession to his father, sat for Castle Rising, in the last two short parliaments which preceded the death of William III., and at once distinguished himself as an active and able ally of the Whig party, then holding the power of administration. In 1702, he was chosen member for King’s Lynn, and represented that borough in several successive parliaments. After, with the interest of George, Prince of Denmark, filling the posts of secretary at war, 1708, and treasurer of the navy, 1709, the Tory advisers of the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign dismissed Walpole from all his posts. The Commons in 1711 voting him guilty of a high breach of trust and notorious corruption in his office as secretary at war, it was resolved to expel him from the House, and that he should be committed to the Tower. Under this vindictive persecution, he was, by his party, regarded as a martyr to the cause, nor does there appear sufficient proof to justify this severity. Encouraged by Walpole’s energetic tactics, his constituents remained firm, and he was re-elected by the burgesses of Lynn in 1713–14, and, though the House declared the return void, yet the electors persisted in their choice, and Walpole took a decided part against the queen’s Tory ministry, until “the turn of the wheel,” which raised the Elector of Hanover on the English throne as Queen Anne’s successor, threw back the power of administration into the hands of Walpole and the Whigs, and once more reduced the Tories to vent their mortification in unscrupulous attacks and misrepresentations, while they were themselves exerting all their abilities for the subversion of the House of Hanover and the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. The bitterness of party warfare was mostly manifested at election times. A burlesque “Bill of Costs” was printed in the Flying Post (Jan. 27, 1715), “for a late Tory election in the West,” in which part of the country the Tory interest was strongest:—

WALPOLE CHAIRED. 1701. (From “Robin’s Progress.”)

(Dr. Newton’s Collection.)

	£	s.	d.
Imprimis, for bespeaking and collecting a mob	20	0	0
Item, for many suits of knots for their heads	30	0	0
For scores of huzza-men	40	0	0
For roarers of the word “Church”	40	0	0
For a set of “No Roundhead” roarers	40	0	0
For several gallons of Tory punch on church tombstones	30	0	0
For a majority of clubs and brandy-bottles	20	0	0
For bell-ringers, fiddlers, and porters	10	0	0
For a set of coffee-house praters	40	0	0
For extraordinary expense for cloths and lac’d hats on show days, to dazzle the mob	50	0	0
For Dissenters’ damners	40	0	0
For demolishing two houses	200	0	0
For committing two riots	200	0	0
For secret encouragement to the rioters	40	0	0
For a dozen of perjury men	100	0	0
For packing and carriage paid to Gloucester	50	0	0
For breaking windows	20	0	0
For a gang of alderman-abusers	40	0	0
For a set of notorious lyars	50	0	0
For pot-ale	100	0	0
For law, and charges in the King’s Bench	300	0	0
	£1460	0	0

It will be observed in this “bill” that bribery is not put down as one of the prominent features of an election at this period; violence was, as yet, found to be more effective than corruption.

In March, 1721, when the first of the succession of triennial parliaments dissolved, the country was already in a state of fermentation at the prospect of the coming contest. Violence was now utilized in new methods, such as beating off voters of opposition candidates; while hostile electors were surrounded by mobs hired for the purpose, and cut off from the polling-booths; and in some cases voters were carried off forcibly, and locked up until the election was over.

In country boroughs much agitation was manifested, and in several places, such as Coventry, formidable riots took place.

The metropolis shared the general excitement. It was on this occasion that the Westminster contest began to be regarded as of the first consequence, it being a point of ambition with the rival parties to return their candidates for this constituency, the results of which conflict were expected to exercise an influence upon other places. The election for this city set in uproariously in 1721, and, as the progress of these electioneering memorials will demonstrate, it continued the same throughout its history, even when in other places the elections were tranquil and uneventful.

The Tories did not allow Walpole to triumph without a struggle for the ascendency, although, by his foresight, and a lavish employment of his universal salve—gold, he managed to diminish the influence both of his opponents and of the mobocracy; and in the new House the Government secured a powerful majority, leaving the Tory organs, towards the close of the elections, when the results were no longer doubtful, to vent their spleen in political squibs and caricatures. Thus, on the 31st of March, the Post Boy announces two satirical prints—one, “Britannia stript by a Villain, to which is added, the True Phiz of a Late Member,” which seems to have disappeared completely; and the other, “The Prevailing Candidate; or the Election carried by Bribery and the D——l;” which, according to all accounts, is the earliest existing contemporary caricature upon the subject of electioneering; and is, moreover, one of the best examples of these productions as published in the reign of George I.

THE PREVAILING CANDIDATE; OR THE ELECTION CARRIED BY BRIBERY AND THE D——L.

(Dr. Newton’s Collection.)

The candidate, it is implied, is a Court nominee; the screen is used to conceal the true movers of the wires, who are at the back of the canvasser; their reflection is shown in the mirror behind, above the console-table, on which bags of money are in readiness to be used for bribery. The wooden shoes symbolize a threatened relapse to slavery. The screen is to typify the seven years of the last parliament—the first of the septennial parliaments; the year 1716 is marked “Septennial Act”—“Part of the Succession Act repealed;”—1720 registers the “South Sea Act,”—“Act to indemnify South Sea Villains;” and 1721 the “Quarantine Act, cum multis aliis;” the other years are blanks. The accompanying verses explain the meaning intended to be conveyed by the principal figures. The personage bribed is the mayor of the place. These functionaries for a long time held the elections in their power, and were amenable to corrupt treatment; in fact, they were expected to make the bargain most advantageous for the court of livery or aldermen, in whom the votes were generally vested. Hence the old saying, “Money makes the mayor to go.”

“Here’s a minion sent down to a corporate town,

In hopes to be newly elected;

By his prodigal show, you may easily know

To the Court he is truly affected.

“He ’as a knave by the hand, who has power to command

All the votes in the corporation;

Shoves a sum in his pocket, the D——l cries ‘Take it,

’Tis all for the good of the nation!’

“The wife, standing by, looks a little awry

At the candidate’s way of addressing;

But a priest stepping in avers bribery no sin,

Since money’s a family blessing.

“Say the boys, ‘Ye sad rogues, here are French wooden brogues,

To reward your vile treacherous knavery;

For such traitors as you are the rascally crew

That betray the whole kingdom to slavery.’ ”

The elections of 1727, in spite of the exertions of Bolingbroke and Pulteney in the Craftsman, and the intrigues of the former with the Duchess of Kendal, mistress of George I., were a disappointment to the Tories and “patriots,” i.e. Jacobites. On the death of George I. their prospects were even less promising. Queen Caroline, the consort of George II., was the steadfast friend of Walpole, and although the Bolingbroke faction paid their court to the mistress of the new king, as they had done in the last reign to that of his predecessor, they gained nothing by their motion, as George II. was governed by his wife in political questions. The hopes placed by the Tories in the elections were altogether frustrated; in the parliament chosen in 1727 the ministerial majority was greater than before, and their opponents were reduced to vent their mortification in strictures against the bribery, corruption, undue influence, and those secret intrigues in which they were themselves such adepts.

Of the few caricatures to which this contest gave rise that best known is entitled “Ready Money the Prevailing Candidate; or the Humours of an Election;” and even in this the satirical allusions appear to have a general rather than a specific application. This picture, like most of the caricatures of the time, is slightly allegorical; the scene is evidently the outskirts of a town; colossal statues of “Folly” and “Justice” are shown at either side. As the title implies, bribery is the motive power of the entire action. In the centre is a figure with his back to the spectator; the rear of this person’s coat is covered with pockets, into which those interested in the work of buying votes are dropping money; the recipient is declaring, “No bribery, but pockets are free.” Another gentleman, with his hat raised in the air, is crying, “Sell not your country.” A whole body of electors behind these plausible individuals are standing ready to be bought; an agent is canvassing this group for their votes, with a money-bag to meet their requirements. To the right, a man is kneeling to secure a heap of pieces, which are lavishly scattered about, while another person is stooping to press a well-filled bag of money upon his acceptance as “a small acknowledgment.” One of the candidates, handsomely attired, and with a feathered hat, is carried on a litter by four bearers, much like “Chairing a member;” he has bags of money in both hands, and his progress is marked by a shower of gold “for his country’s service.” At the door of an inn stands a figure whose head is supplemented with antlers—“He kissed my wife, he shall have my vote!” “Folly” is personated by a male effigy, also emptying out money-bags to his votaries: before his altar a candidate is kneeling amidst his canvassing tickets; he is exclaiming, “Help me, Folly, or my cause is lost.” In the foreground is the figure of an ancient philosopher, who is made to say, “Let not thy right hand know what thy left does;” his left hand is accommodatingly held behind his back, and this an agent is filling with pieces. A person dressed like a Covenanter is crying, “See here, see here!” The emblematical figure of “Justice,” blind, and with her attributes of sword and scales, has her altar deserted. One man is admonishing his neighbour to “Regard Justice;” the other, who has a sack of unlawful treasure on his shoulder, replies, “We fell out: I lost money by her.” A modishly dressed candidate, hat in hand, is pressing a bag of money on another individual, who seems to have been bribed already, but is willing to accept further emoluments—“ ’Twill scarce pay, make it twenty more.”

O Cives! Cives! quærenda Pecunia primum est Virtus post Nummos.

READY MONEY, THE PREVAILING CANDIDATE; OR, THE HUMOURS OF AN ELECTION. (Dr. Newton’s Collection.)

[Page 84.

A copy of verses sets forth the morality of this plate:—

“The Laws against Bribery provision may make,

Yet means will be found both to give and to take;

While charms are in flattery, and power in gold,

Men will be corrupted and Liberty sold.

When a candidate interest is making for votes,

How cringing he seems to the arrantest sots!

‘Dear Sir, how d’ye do? I am joyful to see ye!

How fares your good spouse? and how goes the world wi’ ye?

Can I serve you in anything? Faith, Sir, I’ll do’t

If you’ll be so kind as to give me your vote.

Pray do me the honour an evening to pass

In smoking a pipe and in taking a glass!’

Away to the tavern they quickly retire,

The ploughman’s ‘Hail-fellow-well-met’ with the Squire;

Of his company proud, he ‘huzzas’ and he drinks,

And himself a great man of importance he thinks:

He struts with the gold newly put in his breeches,

And dreams of vast favours and mountains of riches.

But as soon as the day of Election is over,

His woeful mistake he begins to discover;

The Squire is a Member—the rustic who chose him

Is now quite neglected—he no longer knows him.

Then Britons! betray not a sordid vile spirit

Contemn gilded baits, and elect men of merit.”

THE KENTISH ELECTION, 1734.

A realistic version of the hustings appeared under the title of “The Kentish Election, 1734.” The locality of the gathering here represented is probably Maidstone in Kent. A large open space on the outskirts of the town is the scene of action. The candidates and their numerous supporters are raised above the multitude, and standing on the hustings. Round this erection is a great crowd of electors, many of whom are on horseback.

In the foreground, a mounted clergyman is at the head of a procession of his flock, all wearing favours in their hats, and professing themselves supporters of the “Protestant Interest,” i.e. Whigs; two of them carry staves and books; the “gauges” in their hands seem to indicate that they are gaugers or excisemen, i.e. placemen: it must be noted that the chief grievance against Walpole and his administration at this time was the attempt to tax tobacco and wines. The Opposition party-cry is “No Excise,” with the names of “Vane and Dering,” the successful candidates, in whose honour, with that of the “Country Interest,” i.e. Tories, which they had pledged themselves to promote, the followers of their party wear sprigs of oak in their hats—a memorial of the Restoration of the Stuarts. The party-cry of their antagonists is for “King and Country,” and “Middlesex and Oxenden.” Sir George Oxenden had voted for the Government and in favour of the Excise Bill; he sat for Maidstone before the dissolution, April, 1734. The Earl of Middlesex was not a member of the former Parliament. These gentlemen finally threw up the poll, the victory of their opponents being assured, May 16, 1734. Of the successful candidates, Viscount Vane and Sir Edward Dering, the former had voted against the Excise Bill, and the latter was absent on the division. Something in the way of influencing suffrages seems to have been done on a large scale by Viscount Vane. Two hogsheads of French brandy were sent down to his seat in Kent (according to the Daily Post), together with sixty dozen of knives and forks, in preparation for the entertainment his lordship offered the freeholders. The Grub Street Journal devotes some attention to the treats with which the successful candidates regaled their constituents at an early stage of their canvass, and these hospitalities were returned in kind.

“At a meeting lately at the Swan Tavern in Cornhill, of about 100 substantial worthy citizens of London, freeholders of the County of Kent, the Right Hon. the Lord Vane and Sir Edw. Dering, Bart., candidates in the Country Interest, were entertained in an elegant manner by the freeholders,” etc. It is further stated that “these candidates were met at about two miles from Westerham, in Kent, by 300 freeholders on horseback, and dined at the George Inn, where healths were drunk to the glorious 205”—this being the number of members whose votes placed the Government in a minority upon the Excise Bill. Nor was wanting what later statesmen have termed “the fine old English Institution” of parading the Minister in effigy.

“The populace, to show their zeal on this occasion, dressed up a figure of a certain Excise gentleman (Sir Robert Walpole to wit) with blue paper round his shoulders (intended for the riband of the Garter, always alluded to with spite by the prime minister’s adversaries), a pipe in his mouth (Tobacco Bill), and several Florence flasks about his neck (referring to the proposed duty on wines), then mounted him upon a mule, and led him round the town in procession.” (The Grub Street Journal.)

On the same authority (No. 230), under date Wednesday, May 23, 1734, is announced the sudden demise of the leading candidate: “On Monday, about five in the afternoon, the Right Hon. the Lord Visc. Vane dropt down dead of an apoplexy, just as he was taking leave of a gentleman, at his seat at Fairlawn in Kent” (Daily Post).

An early design upon bribery at elections is attributed to Hogarth. This plate was produced during the canvass in 1734, just twenty years before the commencement of the famous “Election” series by the same artist. The print is a small etching, and represents Sir Robert Fagg, an old baronet, seated on horseback, holding a purse in one hand, and offering a bribe of money to a young woman who is standing by his horse’s head; on her arm is a basket of eggs; she is laughing at the canvasser. Sir Robert Fagg was member for Steyning, Sussex. Concerning the baronet it is written, in “The Art of Politicks”—

“Leave you of mighty Interest to brag,

And poll two voices like Sir Robert Fagg.”

“The Humours of a Country Election,” of which the first version appeared in 1734, beyond the light it offers upon the subject in question, is curious and interesting, as Mr. F. G. Stephens is inclined to suggest40 that Hogarth may have borrowed the idea of illustrating the chief incidents of an election from the “Humours” therein described. The plate is in three divisions, and forms the frontispiece to the collection of songs published under the title of “the Humours of a Country Election” in 1734, at which time there was a general election; it was republished in 1741,41 under similar circumstances. The print is sufficiently described by the original advertisement, inserted at the time of its publication in the Grub Street Journal (No. 233), June 13, 1734. “This Day is publish’d (Price One Shilling), Neatly printed, and stitched in blue paper, ‘The Humours of a Country Election.’ ”

“Being mounted in their best array,

Upon a steed, and who but they?

And follow’d by a world of tall lads

That merry ditties, frolics and ballads,

Did ride with many a Good-morrow,

Crying, Hey for our Town, thro’ the Borough.”

(Hudibras.)

“A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags,

In silks, in crapes, in Garters, and in rags;

From Drawing-rooms, from Colleges, from Garrets,

On horse, on foot, in Hacks, in gilded Chariots.”

(Grub Street Journal, No. 268. Also in the Poems Edition.)

“With a curious frontispiece explanatory of the same in the following particulars:—

“I. The candidate welcomed into the town by music and electors on horseback, attended by a mob of men, women, and children. The candidates saluting the women, and amongst them a poor cobbler’s wife, to whose child they very courteously offer to stand God-father. II. The candidates are very complaisant to a country clown, and offering presents (a bag marked 50l.) to the wife and children. The candidates making an entertainment for the electors and their wives, to whom they show great respect; at the upper end of the table the parson of the parish sitting, his clerk standing by him. III. The place of electing and polling, with mob attending. The members elect carried in procession in chairs, upon men’s shoulders, with music playing before them; attended by a mob of men, women, and children huzzaing them. To which is added the character of a Trimmer in verse, &c.”

“A new Year’s Gift (for the year 1741) to the Electors of Great Britain,” contains the information that “The Oath imposed upon Electors—the only preservative of public Liberty from the secret and fatal attacks of Bribery and Corruption,” was as follows:—

“ ‘I————, do swear, I have not received, or had myself, or any person whatsoever, in Trust for me, or for my Use and Benefit, directly or indirectly, any sum or sums of money, Office, Place, or employment, gift, or reward, or any promise, or security for any money, office, employment, or gift, in order to give my vote at this Election, and that I have not been polled before at this Election,

‘So Help me God.’

“Let every man of common sense judge whether an oath so wisely framed and strictly worded can possibly admit of any equivocation, to cover the base villainy of taking a bribe to his country’s ruin; and what shall we think of those men who dare tempt others to the breach of a duty so sacred! Ought they not to be stoned, or hooted out of society, as the destroyers of public Faith, Virtue, Religion, and Liberty? Do not such agents for the Devil compass his ends most effectually, by seducing men from the indispensable duties they owe to God and their country, to themselves and their posterity?

THE HUMOURS OF A COUNTRY ELECTION. 1734.

[Page 90.

“Wisely, therefore, hath that good Law annexed the shameful penalties of the pillory to the breach of that Sacred Oath, with a large Fine of Five Hundred Pounds; and justly excluded all base perjurers from the most valuable Rights and Privileges of Englishmen, in the following paragraphs:—

“ ‘And be it enacted, That whosoever shall be convicted of false swearing, shall incur and suffer the Pains and Penalties as in a case of wilful and corrupt Perjury.

“And whosoever shall receive or take any money or other reward, by way of Gift, Loan, or other device, or agree or contract for any Money, Gift, Office, or Reward whatsoever, to give his vote, shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, and be for ever disabled to vote in any Election of any Member to Parliament, and be for ever disabled to hold any public office.’

“Will any man, pretending to common honesty, thus basely forfeit his Birthright, his most glorious privilege as an Englishman, by a shameful perjury for the Lucre of a Bribe? Can such a Bribe make him and his posterity happy in the midst of his country’s ruin, and the just contempt and abhorrence of all his neighbours? No, surely: but when the small wages of his iniquity are spent, he must, like the Traitor Judas, hang himself, or starve to death; because no man can either pity, or deal with such a perjured abandoned wretch.

“Artful corruptors of the present times may flatter weak minds with hopes of being admitted to vote without taking the Oath; but it is a vain delusion; since the Law allows the Candidates or any two of the Electors to put the Oath to whomsoever they please; and surely there are at least Two Honest Men in every Borough of the Kingdom, who will think it their duty to bring Corruption to the Test of this just and necessary Oath, to the eternal infamy of all Corruptors, and the Corrupted.”

The oath thus explicitly explained was in sober earnest administered by the lawyers retained in the respective interests, as illustrated by Hogarth in his “Polling Booth,” 1754. It is rather alarming to think of the huge amount of perjury which has followed electioneering. The general elections of the spring of 1741 were a trying ordeal for Walpole; all the well-worn clamours were revived, the “Convention” was once more torn to shreds, and fresh attacks upon the “excise projects” were turned to bitter political account. Amidst a shower of squibs, both literary and pictorial, we find the caricature, “Dedicated to the worthy Electors of Great Britain,” of “The Devil upon Two Sticks,” in which Walpole, as the “Asmodeus” of the situation, is represented as being supported upon the shoulders of two of his bought-majority to ford the “Slough of Despond,” already crossed by some of his followers, who, though in safety on the bank, bear evident marks of the dirty ordeal through which they have been compelled to struggle upon “Robin’s” account. Britannia and her patriotic friends(?) remain high and dry on the other shore; below the satire appears a pointed indication of the unpopular Walpolians, as “Members who voted for the Excise and against the Convention.”